DOCSLIB.ORG

From the Desire to Mark Essex: the Catalysts of Militarization for the New Orleans Police Department

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
From the Desire to Mark Essex: the Catalysts of Militarization for the New Orleans Police Department University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Spring 5-13-2016 From the Desire to Mark Essex: The Catalysts of Militarization for the New Orleans Police Department Derrick W.A. Martin University of New Orleans, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Part of the Law and Race Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, and the Public History Commons Recommended Citation Martin, Derrick W.A., "From the Desire to Mark Essex: The Catalysts of Militarization for the New Orleans Police Department" (2016). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2174. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2174 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “From the Desire to Mark Essex: The Catalysts of Militarization for the New Orleans Police Department” A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History By Derrick Martin B.A. Southern University of New Orleans, 2014 May 2016 Abstract The ultimate goal in the South was to end segregation, but nationwide equal-rights were the common goal of all African-Americans. Nonviolent protests and over aggressive police departments became the norm within the African-American community. Understated in the history of the Civil Rights Era is the role of armed resistance and Black Nationalism. Marcus Garvey, Stokely Carmichael, Huey P. Newton, and Malcolm X were Black Nationalists that led the charge of Black Nationalism worldwide. The Deacons of Defense, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense transformed the social makeup of the country and became major causes of the militarization of police departments across the United States. Many police departments across America began to create SWAT teams and use military-style weaponry following an outbreak of riots and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In New Orleans, Louisiana, stand-offs and shoot- outs with Black Panther members warranted a call for military backup, but it was the acts of Mark James Robert Essex that totally militarized the New Orleans Police Department. Keywords: Civil Rights Era, Huey P. Newton, Black Nationalism, SWAT, police militarization, Mark Essex, Black Panther Party, New Orleans, Desire Housing Projects, NOPD ii Introduction January 7, 1973, is a day that lives in infamy in New Orleans, for many residents. The name Mark Essex traveled through conversations of local New Orleanais rather frequent. The city of New Orleans was under attack, an ordeal that began seven days earlier. Mark James Robert Essex orchestrated “Seven Days of Hell.”1 A title will forever accompany the name of Mark Essex -- “the New Orleans sniper.”2 The details surrounding the seven days of terror vary depending on the person giving the data. Motives for the Essex crimes also differ from racial hatred to carrying out an agenda of the Black Panther Party. The emergence of the Black Panther Party nationwide put police departments across the nation on notice. Civil unrest, protest, riots, and the Black Panthers provided police departments with valid reasons for making militarized changes within departments. The case of the New Orleans sniper discombobulated many in law enforcement. The fact a single perpetrator could inflict so much havoc was unimaginable. For tactical reasons, the Mark Essex incident became great teaching experience for law enforcement agencies across the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used the mistakes made by the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) in building entry tactical procedure as a training mechanism for years following the incident. An ill-prepared and ill-equipped New Orleans Police Department added to the many embarrassments during the Essex ordeal. New Orleans, Louisiana, not different from other cities in the United States; however the Black Panthers were only one of two major causes for militarization of the NOPD. New Orleans police and the Black Panther Party infamous shoot-outs, raids, and stand-offs are well 1 Peter Hernon, A Terrible Thunder: The Story of the New Orleans Sniper, (New Orleans: Garrett County Press, 2010), 5. 2 Ibid. 3. 1 documented and recorded. Residents of the Desire Housing Projects, angry at an attempted infiltration of the Black Panthers, helped unleash the wrath of the New Orleans Police Department. September 15, 1970, the NOPD executed a raid on the Black Panther Headquarters in the Desire neighborhood on the premise of having arrest warrants for six people believed to live at the headquarters.3 The September 1970, confrontation between Panthers in Desire and police unveiled the militarized direction the NOPD was heading. The next two battles of the Panthers and NOPD ended in the biggest stand-off known to date in New Orleans and the end of the Black Panther Party in New Orleans. The end of the Black Panther Party in New Orleans coincides with the arrival of Mark Essex in the city. The Black Panther Party and Mark Essex in particular emerged as reasons for militarization within the New Orleans Police Department. Essex’s blatant attack on NOPD Central Lock-Up and subsequent murder of a police cadet advanced the New Orleans Police Department into the Twentieth century of policing. The terror acts of Mark Essex aired on local and national television. Police and civilians were terrified while many in the African-American community cheered the acts of Essex. Essex’s ordeal embedded his name in infamy in New Orleans history along with the immediate changes within the New Orleans Police Department. This thesis shows cause of militarization in police departments due to the fear of rioting, civil unrest, and emergence of the Black Panther Party within the African-American community; however, the Panthers and Mark Essex pushed the militarization of the New Orleans Police Department. Literature Review 3 “Why Twenty-Four Panthers Are Political Prisoners in Louisiana,” THE BLACK PANTHER: Intercommunal News Service, June 12, 1971, accessed March 3, 2016, http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/chapter_history/pdf/new_orleans/neworleans24.pdf. 2 The history of the Black Panther Party is controversial. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black movement organization of the late 1960s, and "the strongest link between the domestic Black Liberation Struggle and global opponents of American imperialism.”4 Other commentators have described the Party as more criminal than political, characterized by "defiant posturing over substance."5 The historical writings on the Black Panther Party center on a theme of Civil Rights. However, it is the approach the Black Panther Party took in achieving equal civil rights that dictate the narrative in writings. For instance, several historians and writers have labeled the Black Panther Party as a terroristic organization and not a civil rights group. For the Black Panthers, it was a theme of armed resistance that championed the nonviolent movement. The literary foundation of the Black Panthers ideology is drawn from Robert Williams’ Negroes With Guns.6 In recent years works have emerged on the Panthers and their history. Charles J. Austin’s, Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party,7 and Judson L. Jeffries, On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities across America8 are respectable works. These works draw from literary contributions of former Black Panther members. Eldrige Cleaver, Angela Davis, David Hillard, Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale have all made significant contributions. However, historians question the works of former Black Panther members due to the members’ intimacy with the 4 Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 3. 5 Hugh Pearson, The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America, (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 1994), 340. 6 Robert Williams, Negroes With Guns, (New York: Mazani & Munsell, 1962). 7 Curtis J. Austin, Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party, (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2006). 8 Judson L. Jeffries, On the Ground: The Black Panther in Communities across America, (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 2011). 3 subject matter. Therefore, historians feel the works of Panther members may represent a conflict of interest. Literature on the Black Panther Party of New Orleans is not as vast as literature on the party as a whole. The majority of works on the Black Panthers in New Orleans come from newspaper articles. A few historians have managed to produce significant literary works about the Black Panthers in New Orleans. Barbara Eckstein’s, Sustaining New Orleans: Literature, Local Memory, and the Fate of the City,9 and Leonard N. Moore’s, Black Rage in New Orleans: Police Brutality and African American Activism10 are suitable resources, but in both cases only dedicate a chapter to the Panthers. On the other hand, Orissa Arend’s, Showdown in Desire: The Black Panthers Take a Stand in New Orleans,11 is a detailed account of the Black Panthers in the Desire neighborhood.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mayor Landrieu and Race Relations in New Orleans, 1960-1974
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of New Orleans University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 5-20-2011 Phases of a Man Called 'Moon': Mayor Landrieu and Race Relations in New Orleans, 1960-1974 Frank L. Straughan Jr. University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Straughan, Frank L. Jr., "Phases of a Man Called 'Moon': Mayor Landrieu and Race Relations in New Orleans, 1960-1974" (2011). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1347. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1347 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Phases of a Man Called ―Moon‖: Mayor Landrieu and Race Relations in New Orleans, 1960-1974 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History by Frank L.
    [Show full text]
  • Black Anarchism, Pedro Riberio
    TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................2 2. The Principles of Anarchism, Lucy Parsons....................................................................3 3. Anarchism and the Black Revolution, Lorenzo Komboa’Ervin......................................10 4. Beyond Nationalism, But not Without it, Ashanti Alston...............................................72 5. Anarchy Can’t Fight Alone, Kuwasi Balagoon...............................................................76 6. Anarchism’s Future in Africa, Sam Mbah......................................................................80 7. Domingo Passos: The Brazilian Bakunin.......................................................................86 8. Where Do We Go From Here, Michael Kimble..............................................................89 9. Senzala or Quilombo: Reflections on APOC and the fate of Black Anarchism, Pedro Riberio...........................................................................................................................91 10. Interview: Afro-Colombian Anarchist David López Rodríguez, Lisa Manzanilla & Bran- don King........................................................................................................................96 11. 1996: Ballot or the Bullet: The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Electoral Process in the U.S. and its relation to Black political power today, Greg Jackson......................100 12. The Incomprehensible
    [Show full text]
  • Anarchism and the Black Revolution
    Anarchism and the Black Revolution Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin 1993 Contents Dedication For the second edition of Anarchism and the Black Revolution . 4 Chapter 1. An Analysis of White Supremacy 5 How the Capitalists Use Racism .............................. 5 Race and Class: the Combined Character of Black Oppression .............. 6 So What Type of Anti-Racist Group is Needed? ...................... 7 The Myth of “Reverse Racism” ............................... 8 Smash the right Wing! .................................... 10 Defeat white supremacy! .................................. 12 Chapter 2. Where is the Black struggle and where should it be going? 16 A Call for a New Black Protest Movement ......................... 17 What form will this movement take? ............................ 18 Revolutionary strategy and tactics ............................. 19 A Black Tax Boycott ..................................... 19 A National Rent Strike and Urban Squatting ........................ 20 A Boycott of American Business .............................. 20 A Black General Strike ................................... 21 The Commune: Community Control of the Black Community . 23 Building A Black survival program ............................. 26 The Need for a Black Labor Federation ........................... 28 Unemployment and Homelessness ............................. 32 Crimes Against the People ................................. 35 The Drug Epidemic: A New Form of Black Genocide? . 38 African Intercommunalism ................................. 40 Armed
    [Show full text]
  • UWM Police Guns Spur Debate SA Housing Service Enforces State
    I N I •SANDBURG: Asbestos removal in residence halls to take years •MCGEE: Black Panther Militia one part of community plan for unity •THEATRE X season finale proves a Success •TRACK recap and looking ahead to next year with Coach Corfield Wednesday, June 20, 1990 Volume 34, Number 52 Happy Juneteenth Day SA Housing Service enforces state statute by Bill Meyer News Edjtor • he Off Campus Housing and Referral Service has revised its policies for housing advertisements to comply with the Wisconsin TStatutes on equal rights in housing, according to Jacqueline Sciuti, manager of the service. As a result, roommate-wanted ads and ads for rooms in owner-occupied, single-family residences placed through the service may not be gender-specific. Sciuti, who made the revision in May, said that the new policy was initiated in order to comply with a 1988 change in the state statutes. "We were just made aware of that recently. There was a complaint tak­ en to the fair housing board by a student," said Sciuti. The section of the statute in question, sec. 101.22, states that "the legislature hereby extends the state law governing equal housing opportunities to cover single-family residences which are owner occupied ... the sale and rental of single- family residences of single- family residences constitute a significant portion of the housing busi­ ness in this state and should be regulated." There is no specific mention of roomate-wanted ads, but the statute does prohibit "publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying . any communication, notice, advertisement or sign in connection with the —Post photo by Robert Schatzman sale, financing, lease or rental of housing, which states or indicates any Children attending Tuesday's Juneteenth Day parade on W.
    [Show full text]
  • Afrikan Revolutionary Assassinated!!!
    VOLUME·1 1 NUMBERII FEBRUARI1973 15 CENTS AFRIKANREVOLUTIONARY ASSASSINATED!!! concrete PanAfrikanism linking The news of the assassination of Afrikans in the West with Afrikans on Brother Amilcar Cabral should come the continent, so Brother Cabral, as a shattering shock to all Afrikan when he began to move past the people and all people who are seriously involved in the Liberation of theories of PanAfrikanism into the Afrikan people as well as the concrete establishment of Liberation of all oppressed people all PanAfrikanist ties, was also mur­ over the world. Brother Cabral, dered . Secretary-General of (PAIGC) We accuse the American govern­ Afrikan Party for the Independence of ment with active , decisive support of Guinea -Bissau and Cape Verde this blow against Afrikan Liberation. Islands, was a leader in the struggle It's no secret that Hitler-Nixon and of World Afrikan Liberation, a true his fascist advisors not only support PanAfrikanist whose intellectual Portuguese colonialism in the United understanding of revolution was Nations, but with the tax money of matched only by his actual com­ American citizens, and in a country mittment as leader of an Afrikan Amilcar Cabral with at least 30 million Afrikans living revolutionary party engaged in ar­ colonialism to murder him. Brother that the National Assembly of Guinea­ within it, it's shocking that white med struggle . Cabral's thrust at linking up the Bissa u had been formed in December, racists should continue to act as if President Toure has already ac­ struggle between Afrikans on the that Secretary-Gene ral Cabral had there were no Afrikans living in cused the forces of Portuguese continent and Afrikans of the Western announced plans of Guinea-Bissa u to America.
    [Show full text]
  • 47 Free Films Dealing with Racism That Are Just a Click Away (With Links)
    47 Free Films Dealing with Racism that Are Just a Click Away (with links) Ida B. Wells : a Passion For Justice [1989] [San Francisco, California, USA] : Kanopy Streaming, 2015. Video — 1 online resource (1 video file, approximately 53 min.) : digital, .flv file, sound Sound: digital. Digital: video file; MPEG-4; Flash. Summary Documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Though virtually forgotten today, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name in Black America during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-known African American contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells' memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards. "One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap." - Ida B. Wells "Tells of the brave life and works of the 19th century journalist, known among Black reporters as 'the princess of the press, ' who led the nation's first anti-lynching campaign." - New York Times "A powerful account of the life of one of the earliest heroes in the Civil Rights Movement...The historical record of her achievements remains relatively modest. This documentary goes a long way towards rectifying that egregious oversight." - Chicago Sun-Times "A keenly realized profile of Ida B.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation
    ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: SLAVE SHIPS, SHAMROCKS, AND SHACKLES: TRANSATLANTIC CONNECTIONS IN BLACK AMERICAN AND NORTHERN IRISH WOMEN’S REVOLUTIONARY AUTO/BIOGRAPHICAL WRITING, 1960S-1990S Amy L. Washburn, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Deborah S. Rosenfelt Department of Women’s Studies This dissertation explores revolutionary women’s contributions to the anti-colonial civil rights movements of the United States and Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. I connect the work of Black American and Northern Irish revolutionary women leaders/writers involved in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Panther Party (BPP), Black Liberation Army (BLA), the Republic for New Afrika (RNA), the Soledad Brothers’ Defense Committee, the Communist Party- USA (Che Lumumba Club), the Jericho Movement, People’s Democracy (PD), the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), the National H-Block/ Armagh Committee, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Women Against Imperialism (WAI), and/or Sinn Féin (SF), among others by examining their leadership roles, individual voices, and cultural productions. This project analyses political communiqués/ petitions, news coverage, prison files, personal letters, poetry and short prose, and memoirs of revolutionary Black American and Northern Irish women, all of whom were targeted, arrested, and imprisoned for their political activities. I highlight the personal correspondence, auto/biographical narratives, and poetry of the following key leaders/writers: Angela Y. Davis and Bernadette Devlin McAliskey; Assata Shakur and Margaretta D’Arcy; Ericka Huggins and Roseleen Walsh; Afeni Shakur-Davis, Joan Bird, Safiya Bukhari, and Martina Anderson, Ella O’Dwyer, and Mairéad Farrell.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly
    VOLUME XXXVII The Historic New Orleans NUMBER 1 Collection WINTER 2020 Quarterly Shop online at www.hnoc.org/shop SPORTING LIFE: 20 Transformative Tales Tennis enthusiasts enjoying an afternoon “Tennis Tea” at the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club ca. 1898 courtesy of Tulane University Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, the Louisiana Research Collection, New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club Records ON THE COVER Billy Kilmer handing off to Tony Baker (detail) between 1967 and 1970 gift of the Press Club of New Orleans, 1994.93.41 FROM THE PRESIDENT History is constantly being created. The actions of today become the stories of tomorrow. Which events will be preserved, remembered, valued? Which will be lost, forgotten, neglected? There is much in this issue of the Quarterly to remind us of the deceptively simple concept that some of the experiences of our lives will be historically significant for future generations. Sometimes we think we know history when it happens, but more often, we are unaware of the moments in our lives that will make a lasting mark. Curator Mark Cave’s article, CONTENTS “Local Legends,” about our latest exhibition, Crescent City Sport, describes episodes in sports history that fit each category. A sense of significance must have abounded while the ON VIEW / 2 action unfolded at the Saints’ first regular season game in 1967. But Newcomb profes- Crescent City Sport: Stories of Courage sor Clara Baer, who wrote the first rulebook for women’s basketball in 1895, and, more and Change tells tales of sporting life recently, spectators at the first match of the Big Easy Rollergirls probably never imagined and civic communion in New Orleans.
    [Show full text]
  • Black News Table of Contents
    Black News Table of Contents Boxes 7 through 11 of the Civil Rights in Brooklyn Collection Call Number: BC 0023 Brooklyn Public Library – Brooklyn Collection Box 7: Location MR 1.5 Vol. 1 No. 1, October 1969 Willie Thompson “Black News “of Bedford Stuyvesant The Uhuru Academy Explanation Of the So-called Generation Enemies of the Black Communities Gap Radical Approach toward low-income housing Vol. 1 No. 4, November 15, 1969 The Black study circle Christmas Nigger “The Beast” ( a poem) Harlem’s demand for self-determination Make it, Buy it, or Take it Black Study Circle Black soul plays Understanding Enemies of the Black community All out race war in U.S. Marines…1970 The Black Ass Kickin' Brigade The Healer Forced out of their Home Modern Cities and Nigger incompetence “One Bloody Night” What’s on? No School! protest Bobby Seale From Sister to Sister Are policemen really pigs or worse? Vol. 1 No. 2, October 1969 Liberty House Ocean Hill Brownsville –Revisited-1969- Keep the grapevine buzzin Less Campbell Lindsay owes his body and soul Seminar for Black women Enemies of the Black Communities Black people spend $35 billion annually “The Death Dance” (a poem) Post Revolution thought ( a poem) Community control of the land “I Love America” (a poem) Vol. 1 No. 5 December 1, 1969 Another Black patriot doomed by the pig Rapping on Racists America is so beautiful in the Autumn The arrogance of Model Cities Ho Chi Minh – The man and his plan The soap-opera syndrome “The Needle”(a poem) His Master’s voice A Black father’s one man crusade against Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • I:\2016==GR Sharma Formating Jo
    Journal of Criminal Justice and Law Review Vol. 5 • Nos. 1­2 • January­December 2016 Racial slavery, that “peculiar institution” of the American South, has proven to be one of the United States’ most enduring. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, it was repackaged and re-articulated as a convict underclass. The justification for the marginalization of that convict underclass, a group I refer to as the “criminal caste,” was often articulated in the same terms that had been used to justify racial slavery, a pattern that reflected an underlying commitment to white supremacy. The purpose of this article is to examine the role of historical white supremacy, articulated through colorism and the systematic denigration of blackness, in the construction of a criminal caste in New Orleans. As historian Adam Rothman observed, the Americans who moved west from Virginia and the Carolinas to settle the fertile lands of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, took their values with them as they sought to transmute the wild frontier of Louisiana into “slave country” (Rothman, 2007). Central to those values was a racialized caste system that stipulated black bondage as a necessary counterpoint to white liberty. The internal logic of that caste system demanded that where whiteness signified privilege, blackness necessarily signified subordination; where whiteness signified virtue, blackness signified degeneracy and brutishness. Where whites signified, as a group, the American citizenry, blacks (and non-white people, more generally) signified subjects of the American state, separate from the body politic and unfit for citizenship. This sensibility was, in fact, articulated explicitly by Chief Justice Roger B.
    [Show full text]
  • Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace
    “ALBERT WOODFOX, HERMAN WALLACE and Robert Wilkerson are worth my efforts and the efforts of all who believe that you must !ght injustice where you !nd it.” DAME ANITA RODDICK Founder of The Body Shop and human rights activist “THE RELENTLESS PROSECUTION OF THE Angola 3 in the infamous Penitentiary at Angola…is another in a long line of cases in this country involving egregious prosecuto- rial misconduct. The interests of justice can only be served by ending the prosecution and dropping the charges against them, and setting them free.” RAMSEY CLARK Former U.S. Attorney General “FRIENDSHIPS ARE FORGED IN STRANGE places. My friendship with Robert King, and the other two Angola 3 men Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, is based on respect. These men, as Robert reveals in this stunning account of his life, have fought tirelessly to redress injustice, not only for themselves, but for others. Since his release in 2001 Robert has been engaged in the !ght to rescue these men from a cruel and repressive administration that colludes in deliberate lying and obfuscation to keep them locked up. This is a battle Robert is determined to win, and we are determined to help him.” G ORDON RODDICK Co-founder of The Body Shop and human rights activist “THIS BOOK IS A SEARING INDICTMENT OF the contemporary USA, a rich and commanding nation, which still crushes the hopes and aspirations of so many poor black Americans and criminalizes their young. Robert Hillary King’s account of his horrifying 29 years in prison for a crime he did not commit should shame all of us who believe that justice has to be at the heart of any democracy worthy of that name.” (BARONESS) HELENA KENNEDY QC Member of the House of Lords, Chair of Justice, UK “WHEN THERE IS A TRAIN WRECK, THERE IS a public inquiry, to try to avoid it recurring.
    [Show full text]
  • Black Women's Fiction and the Abject In
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2018 WRITING NEW BOUNDARIES FOR THE LAW: BLACK WOMEN’S FICTION AND THE ABJECT IN PSYCHOANALYSIS Angelique Warner U Massachussetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons Recommended Citation Warner, Angelique, "WRITING NEW BOUNDARIES FOR THE LAW: BLACK WOMEN’S FICTION AND THE ABJECT IN PSYCHOANALYSIS" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1303. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1303 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WRITING NEW BOUNDARIES FOR THE LAW: BLACK WOMEN’S FICTION AND THE ABJECT IN PSYCHOANALYSIS A Dissertation Presented by ANGELIQUE WARNER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2018 W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies © Angelique Warner 2018 All Rights Reserved WRITING NEW BOUNDARIES FOR THE LAW: BLACK WOMEN’s FICTION AND THE ABJECT IN PSYCHOANALYSIS A Dissertation Presented by ANGELIQUE WARNER Approved as to style and content by: James Smethurst, Chair Manisha Sinha, Member TreAndrea Russworm, Member Priscilla Page, Member Amilcar Shabazz, Department Head W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies DEDICATION For Octavia Butler ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, James Smethurst, for his years of encouragement and his expertise in an area of literature that is so important to me.
    [Show full text]